To Fight Beside You
by Vixen2004
Summary: “Penelo, if you do not stop hunching over your bow like so you are going to develop scoliosis.” A one shot on what must have been going through each of our companion’s heads as they fought beside each other to save the world.
1. Chapter 1

_To Fight Beside You_

o-o-o-o-o

"Penelo, if you do not stop hunching over your bow like so you are going to develop scoliosis." A one shot on what must have been going through each of our companion's heads as they fought beside each other to save the world.

o-o-o-o-o

**Balthier **is not one for fish.

This is fairly evident when he makes it to Balfonheim and can walk no more than three feet without being overcome with the intense desire to retch.

Of course, the only person aware of this is Fran, for the pirate would sooner swallow his bile thrice over than admit weakness in front of any of his companions, even though they have had more than their fair share of less then stellar moments in his wake.

"Fran, our weapons smell like fish," he complains pettily as they cross over the spread of Cerobi Steppe, lingering beside her as Penelo and Vaan jut ahead and take the lead. They are ecstatic with the prospect of open space and fresh air after being imprisoned in the Pharos for so long.

"Balthier," she begins evenly, used to his odd quirks that only she has the fortune to be graced with. "I do not care."

"Yes, but it agitates me," he continues, pouting. It would take the entire Archadian army to bring this man to his knees (and even that is not a definite), yet he finds it within himself to whine about the current permeating aroma as long as Fran is the only one to hear. It is what she gets for becoming his family.

"I told you not to purchase that," she states flatly. "Your former gun worked just fine."

Balthier rolls his eyes. "Yes my dear, but a man needs to suit up for battle, lest he wants to be bait."

"I thought we used Vaan as bait."

"Hush, Fran. He is not aware of that."

It was at this moment that the blond in question let out a rather deafening squeal in response to being back attacked by a winged fiend of some grandiose proportions.

Ashe let out an oath vile enough to make even Basch turn a rather unsightly shade of crimson and shot the animal out of the sky with a single arrow she had borrowed from Fran some while back. Once the beast fell, Penelo followed soon after, only she was victim to a vicious string of giggles as opposed to Ashe's unrequited wrath.

o-o-o-o

**Ashe** is one for cleanliness.

It may be hereditary or it may be a by product of her strict upbringing, but she insists on cleaning her Tourensol every evening after the day's battle and does so until it shimmers enough to constitute as its own vanity mirror rather than a weapon of mass destruction.

"Princess, you are squandering our rations," Basch notes, trying to mitigate his tone but finding it hard, for he does not see any reason to keep up appearances while out on the battlefield.

"Nonsense. This is only the fifth cleansing cloth I've used. We have plenty more."

"They double over as gauze should we run out of Curaga, you know this."

"Well I see no need for Curaga _now_," she chides, and resumes her dutiful cleaning.

Balthier can be heard muttering something characteristically profane concerning the aristocracy, which Basch finds slightly amusing because, while the man has no problem complaining about what bothers him, he lacks the gumption to actually _fix_ it.

But Basch keeps such thoughts to himself. Even though, were it up to him, he would have confronted Ba'Gamnan a long time ago as opposed to endlessly _running_ from him.

Then again, he presumes that's what sky pirates do best.

Lest they are Vaan. For he runs, just in the wrong direction.

Almost as if on cue, Penelo substantiates in the dim glow of the campfire, teetering on the edge of its glow with a rather troubled expression adorning her features.

"Basch?" she petitions. "Vaan fell into the Nabradia River again."

Yes. The wrong direction indeed.

o-o-o-o-o

**Penelo** has an odd attack stance.

It seems she has formed a rather unsightly hunch while she fights on the battlefield, and it does not take long for Balthier to notice.

"Penelo, you need to stop slouching over your weapon like so. Sooner or later you will fall victim to scoliosis."

The girl does such things subconsciously, for when one grows up an orphan on the streets, one learns to protect the little possessions they have. And when your best friend is a thief, it is only natural to be extra wary because you have seen what quick hands and quicker feet can do.

So she proceeds to haunch over whatever weapon she is currently wielding, despite Balthier's persistent nagging, and even despite Vaan's chagrin and calling her an old maid.

"You're gonna grow up and be like one of those little old ladies with hunches on their back and cobwebs hanging from their nose. And then you'll loose your teeth. And your hair."

"Vaan, that's enough," Basch booms, trying to maintain order, but it's a senseless endeavor, really, for who can claim control of two wild orphans, an ex-princess, a viera, and a sky pirate?

Vaan's face screws up in disdain, for he is not used to people telling him what to do.

"He's not the boss of me," he mutters, sulking behind an ever sauntering Fran.

"Well then don't listen," Balthier offers listlessly. "What's he going to do? Throw you in prison?"

There is double entendre laced within that last conceit but Vaan is too busy feeling sorry for himself to notice.

o-o-o-o-o

**Balthier** looks slightly feminine whilst summoning.

It is something Basch has always noticed and kept to himself, and he wonders if Fran is simply immune to it or has been around females for so long that she scarcely knows the difference.

Just the way he sticks his arm out, all dainty like, and leaves it to hover there, his dramatic sleeves fluttering in the wind, makes Basch wonder if the bravado is all part of the man's act or if he does such things subconsciously.

"It's melodrama," Ashe offers in a curt fashion. "The man is an attention whore. Just look at his garb."

"At least he has garb to look at," Vaan grumbles from somewhere not far off, for just like Basch, Ashe had taken up a habit of telling the orphan duo what to do. The ill will practically radiates off the young boy's less than favorable words.

Basch is well aware Vaan reveres Balthier as some sort of warped role model, and therefore will defend the man to a fault, but he can't comprehend for the life of him why Vaan would rather look up to the outlaw as opposed to _him_. Since when was a worthy aspiration that of becoming a thief? Doesn't one resort to that in times of dire need as opposed to boredom? Shouldn't the worth of a man be judged on his character and not the amount of entertainment he puts on? His actions as opposed to his words? And his thoughts as opposed to his actions?

There is no way to prove the aforementioned, but Basch likes to think he has a good idea what is running through the sky pirate's mind most of the time.

He simply carbon copies the assumption when trying to get in the headspace of Vaan.

o-o-o-o-o

**Fran** is able to maintain her equilibrium in stilettos.

This amazes Penelo but just confuses Vaan.

"I don't get it!" he finally explodes one evening while the group was out hunting on the Ozmone Plane. "That's just wrong on so many levels!"

Penelo turns to look at him, for all the others had grown quite used to his random, wild exclamations and had learned to pay him no heed. They figured it was best if they let Penelo tend to him, for she was the only one who knew how, or at least, the only one who was willing to do so.

"What is?" she queries, her bow accidentally going off in the wrong direction and missing Basch by mere centimeters. He turns to look at her and she smiles and waves sheepishly.

"_That_!" Vaan reiterates, pointing at Fran's footwear, completely oblivious to the hazardous spectacle that took place right in front of his face.

"Her shoes?"

"Shoes?" Vaan shrieks, the logic all but barreling him over at this point. "Those are not shoes, Penelo. Those are...those are weapons in their own right! That's ancient Rozzarian foot bondage, that's what it is. Cruel and unusual punishment. Akin to a death sentence, even! Gee, Penelo, you think Fran killed someone and that's why she has to wear stilettos?"

"Vaan," Penelo whispers. "That makes no sense."

"I'm serious!" he continues. "_You_ don't wear spikes like that!"

"I think it has something to do with her heels."

"It's a cultural norm," Balthier offers, coming up beside the duo and interrupting their quarrel. "All viera wear footwear such as that. They have to. The build of the planar region in their foot naturally arches and they are incapable of walking or even standing in anything that doesn't support their ankles."

Vaan pauses. Blinks. Pauses again. And then blinks some more.

"You lost me at planar region," he grumbles.

"Really?" Balthier inquires. "I presumed I lost you at _cultural norm_."

He then swaggers ahead to join the viera in question, smirk adorning his features.

o-o-o-o-o

**Basch** wears scarcely little armor for a Knight of Dalmasca.

Balthier wonders if all of Rabanstre has an affinity of being as naked as possible, for after growing up in Archades, he is not used to seeing so much flesh.

Well, save for on his viera counterpart.

But _pale_ flesh, ceramic pallors that rival that of opals, on _men_, no less, this just doesn't sit well with him.

It is no wonder Rasler was shot dead during the battle of Nabudis.

Of course, the sky pirate knows better than to voice such observations out loud, even to an introverted Fran, but he can't help but wonder if Rasler was that moronic with all of decisions, or just his choice of dress.

Though, to be fair, it appeared as though Basch was following in his footsteps, so perhaps Dalmascan citizens were raised thinking they were somewhat invincible.

o-o-o-o-o

**Vaan** is convinced everyone but him is undergoing an identity crisis.

He could understand Amalia, given the fact Princess Ashe was supposedly dead and all.

And while Lamont as opposed to Larsa would win no medals for originality, it still made sense in his mind.

Once could say he started to have his fill of secret alter egos by the time it was revealed to him that Balthier used to go by the name of Ffamran. He wonders what Dr. Cid was ingesting when he decided to bestow such an abuse of the English language unto his child. One would think the family members would catch on to the man's nethicite addiction when he started naming his offspring unpronounceable butcheries that held about as much poetic flair as a butter knife. Perhaps this is why Balthier is so drawn to the lime light. He is probably compensating for a childhood of endless taunts and jeers concerning his less than favorable title.

And then there was the whole Noah thing, in which Vaan had to resist the urge to facepalm because he did not want to seem disrespectful in the wake of the dead (but really, they guy had tried to kill him three times, so Vaan was a little less than distraught when he finally passed on. Penelo still cries about it, though.)

And then Basch up and took his former brother's identity so the rest of Ivalice could go on believing he was dead.

"I'm giving my kids simplistic names," he confided in Penelo one night in the wake of the camp fire. "Like Bob and Joe and Sue. None of this ridiculous fanfare stuff."

Penelo just looked at him. "Please," she droned. "Vaan is no award winner, either."

o-o-o-o-o

Author's Notes

This is liable for an update as soon as I can think of more scenarios to add. Suggestions are always welcome. I suppose this is a work in progress, liable to change given the right amount of inspiration and caffeinated beverages. Hope you enjoyed!


	2. Chapter 2

_To Fight Beside You_

_Continued_

**Larsa** has taken up the rather annoying habit of referring to Penelo as his Precious Pigtail Pixie.

Needless to say, Vaan does not particularly appreciate this.

It's not so much that he minds sharing Penelo—as long as she's happy, he's happy—and he knows she's not fickle enough to up and leave him over four feet of pale flesh and two baby doe eyes. And it's not the wandering affections of Penelo that's bothering him.

It's that he feels inferior; to a twelve ounce boy who's feet don't even reach the ground when he sits.

At twelve, not only did Larsa trump him in articulation skills and other worldly accomplishments (a potential emperor, before puberty; mercy) but he fears that this preteen is more of a man than he can ever hope to be.

And it bothers Vaan. It bothers him greatly, more so than he will ever admit.

But he likes to think Penelo knows, even without saying anything. He also likes to think that's why she stays with him. Even when being pursued by persistent young boys with more gil than libido.

"Tell me you didn't come back to me out of pity," Vaan whispers across the vast scape of land that separates their sleeping bags under the Ozmone clouds, a moment days in coming and seconds in making.

Penelo stares at him, the dome of stars reflecting in her eyes, unblinking and unwavering. She does not look away. She is firm in her resolutions and firm in her decisions.

"Vaan," she says, voice solid like granite. She may look like a willow in the wind but she could bring Vaan to his knees in a matter of seconds and he knows this. "I never left."

And that is all she needs to say and that is all he needs to hear.

o-o-o-o

**Reddas' **sideburns are capable of individual thought and the devouring of small children.

Or at least, this is what Vaan has determined, after hours upon hours of fighting beside him. He spends more time gawking at Reddas' facial hair than the actual fiends. Penelo has to keep nudging him to avert his attention (which usually averts itself quite readily.) He wonders if he were not fixated by Reddas' and his hair if his HP would be this low.

"Think I can grow some hair like that?" Vaan asks Penelo as they trek through the Pharos.

Penelo pauses, uncertain. "Vaan," she begins, following his direct line of vision to the man in question. "Reddas is bald."

"No, no, no," he grumbles. "I mean _facial_ hair, Penelo. Think of the chicks!"

"…Reddas is single."

Vaan rolls his eyes. "You are not helping."

"What? I'm just telling you the truth."

But Penelo's words are cut short by the unexpected fiend that comes hurtling out of the shadows to devour the reedy girl as a mid day snack.

"Penelo," Balthier hisses, for it is quite evident he does not favor looking after anyone but himself (and possibly Fran.) "Watch what you're doing!" He then takes the fiend down with one resounding shot from his gun. It crumples to the floor in defeat, twitches convulsively, and then falls to the realm beyond.

"And what, pray tell," the man begins, bereft of breath and trying to take in enough air to sustain consciousness. "Was so enticing that you were able to negate the need to _pay attention_?"

The two orphans stare, wide eyed and slack jawed.

"Reddas' side burns," Vaan offers simplistically.

Balthier stares at first, opting to say nothing, perhaps waiting for a punch line. When he realizes none is coming, he inhales deeply through his nose, and ventures on.

"I don't deem that worthy of response," he finishes off, and swaggers up ahead shaking his head and muttering incoherent things under his breath. Vaan thinks he catches a very sardonic, '…incredible.'

o-o-o-o

**Rasler** was twenty five before he ever had the need to shave.

And even then, it was more for his ego than his need.

Ashe never said anything about it, and he was grateful for that, but their wedding was coming up that eve and he figured it only appropriate to do away with his facial virginity along with his physical one during the night.

He attempted to negotiate the razor, but he was not practiced in the art of shaving, and had little to physically shave, so the result was more of a butchery than a grooming.

He had tried Curaga to heal the numerous cuts on his face (especially around the chin area) but it was to no avail, for he was no mage and he knew it. In a fit of willful suspension of disbelief, he had attempted a couple spells of white magick, only to find that curing oneself was much more difficult than it seemed.

Maybe it was adrenaline and maybe it was desperateness, but Rasler found himself sneaking through his own palace, on the hunt for his finance who was much more experienced in the art of healing than he.

Eventually he arrived at the appropriate door and knocked twice. His lady answered, and at first she remained quite speechless.

"…Have you been attacked?" Ashe questioned, though she was pretty sure he hadn't been.

"In a sense," he replied, clearing his throat. "I seem to have had a slight misadventure with an object of some sharpness and I was wondering if you could perhaps—"

"You cut yourself shaving, haven't you?"

Rasler fumbled for an answer, and then resigned to the awkward clutches of silence.

"Here, let me."

Ashe then placed both hands on either side of his face and concentrated on the magick coursing through her veins in torrents. Soon, Rasler's face was healed and his complexion restored, and Ashe knew she was leaving her hands on him longer than she had too.

Eventually she drew her limbs back to her sides, still sheathed in a mere nightgown anxiously awaiting the arrival of her dress.

"This, ahem," Rasler began. "This never happened." He nodded in a very respectful fashion, bowed, and then returned from whence he came without looking back.

Ashe hoped he loosened up at least a little bit in the bedroom, otherwise this was going to be one very long night.

o-o-o-o

**Vayne** has more hair products than Penelo.

This could be for multiple reasons.

One being that Penelo has no money, and another being that she was rather content simply wearing her golden locks in two free falling braids. Yet another reason would be that of time, and Penelo simply did not have that luxury to spare. She always assumed taking over the world would be a very time consuming endeavor, but apparently she was wrong. According to Larsa, who had ingested one too many of his own hi potions and was spouting out family gossip like a fountain, Vayne had an entire cabinet full of hair products and spent no less than two hours each and every morning _grooming_ in front of his vanity mirror.

Vaan found this a riot, as was clearly evident by the fact he was now on the floor of the tavern clutching his sides.

Balthier seemed annoyed with the entire ordeal, saying he could not believe the world was in peril due to an over ambitious faerie.

"Well, if I may, Balthier, how many hair products do you use?" Larsa garbled, laughing at Vaan who was laughing at him.

"None," Balthier miffed. "My hair just does this naturally."

There was a pause, as all three young ones sat mutely and believed him.

"Lie much, he does," came the unmistakable sounds of the only viera in the group, who was situated at a table not far from the spectacle at hand.

Balthier responded with a glare and some vehemently spoken words in an ancient woodland tongue, none of which the orphans or prince could understand, but Basch apparently picked up on some of it because, in addition to the hollowed look adorning his face, he had muttered, "You can't talk to her like that, she's a lady!"

The laughing ensued and Balthier went off to the restroom to recuperate. Or perhaps re-tousle his locks.

o-o-o-o

**Vossler** seems to compensate for the lack of armor Basch does—or doesn't—wear.

It's overkill in the simplest sense of the word, and Fran can't understand it.

If he was such a good fighter, good enough to protect the princess, then he should be good enough to negate the need of a self insulating army tank for protection.

"Fran, my dear, not all of us look as good as you half nude," Balthier responds, absent mindedly cleaning his gun as they stopped for a Vaan requested 'potty break' somewhere in the depths of Raithwall's Tomb.

"I can not believe he is desecrating on the ruins," Vossler mutters.

"Well what would you propose he do?" Balthier questions, apparently in a talkative mood. The prospect of the Dynast King's treasure was making him rather giddy. "Tie said gentialia in a knot and perhaps do a little dance for you?"

Vossler makes a disgusted face.

"Hey, _I'm_ the dancer," Penelo wastes no time in pointing out, and Basch finds this terribly amusing.

As does Fran, but she doesn't say so.

And Ashe just looks like she's ready to poke someone's eyes out. Typical.

o-o-o-o

**Fran** likes Penelo, but she does not know how to say it, so she doesn't.

(And she liked Reddas, too, at least until he up and killed himself. Granted, it _was_ for the good of all of Ivalice, and Fran was pretty hopped up on Mist at the time—so perhaps she wasn't thinking properly—but she does recall muttering in Balthier's ear, "Fool. Why does not Vaan sacrifice himself?")

Balthier said something about how that was a death only suitable for a leading man, and Vaan was just there for comic relief. This satisfies Fran somewhat, for she falls into an unconscious slumber and lets Balthier carry her back to the ship.

o-o-o-o

Author's Notes

o-o-o-o

I tried to focus on supporting guest characters this time around, even though Vayne was never a guest character. I wanted to include the Cid's in the mix but lacked the inspiration to do such. Ah well, perhaps next chapter. Yes, I still plan on updating this time to time.

And for those of you who are wondering, yes, the layout was inspired by Touch Of Grey, from her oneshot Angel Feathers. I forgot to give her credit last chapter. Thanks to her and mariagoner, I have learned that not all stories have to read in the regulated paragraph form.


	3. Chapter 3

_To Fight Beside You_

_Continued_

**Vaan** is turning into Balthier, The Sequel.

Or at least trying to, at any rate.

"Did you, perchance, happen to procure some rations whilst we were wondering about in the city?"

Penelo looks blankly at Vaan.

"I think you mean wandering."

"I do not!" Vaan retaliates with a sudden burst of emotion, momentarily forgetting his alter ego. "I _said_ wandering, Penelo. Didn't you hear me?"

"No you didn't. You said wondering."

Vaan crosses his arms over his chest and huffs indignantly.

"Now, now, Vaan," Balthier chastises from across the campfire. "The grownups are trying to have an adult conversation. Use your indoor voice, please."

The man then resumes talking to Ashe and Fran.

Vaan gets so irritated in light of the current proceedings that he actually gets up and stalks off.

"Stay where we can see your feet, child," Balthier calls after him. "And don't accept any potions from strangers."

Basch is actually gawffing at this—in retrospect, it is probably the hardest he has laughed since escaping prison—and Ashe is smirking wildly while pretending she's not. Meanwhile Fran is discretely covering her mouth with a perfectly lacquered hand.

Everyone is amused except for Penelo, because she knows she'll be the one to hear about it for the next five days.

o-o-o-o

**Balthier** thinks Fran is prettier than her sisters.

After the Eruyt meltdown of biblical bunny proportions, he approaches Fran without the slightest bit of hesitation that seems to characterize most men when they are within the proximity of a viera.

"If it is of any consolation," he begins, leering dangerously close to Fran's ears. "You do seem to have a much finer ass."

Any other woman and Balthier would have refrained. But Fran is his other half, and he certainly wouldn't mind it if she took it upon herself to commend his hind quarters once in awhile.

"I suppose I should thank you for that," she responds, arching a superior eyebrow to an already superior man.

"All in good time, my dear. All in good time."

o-o-o-o

**Al-Cid's** pants are tighter than Balthier's.

Basch suspects they are both infertile.

o-o-o-o

**Doctor Cid** has a tendency to pull weapons of mass destruction out of his back pocket.

Balthier is not alarmed by this, for he is used to his father inexplicably making things materialize from behind his back (though it used to be lolly pops and sea salt ice cream) but the others are somewhat taken aback when the doctor calls upon his gatling gun for the first time.

"Where the hell did he get that?!" Vaan squealed, voice cracking.

"Ah, so _that's_ the stick that has been up your ass all this time."

Cid looked directly at his son after he foretold his latest conceit.

"Charming candor, my lad. Do tell, is that a position you find yourself in from time to time with your viera vermin?"

An arrow is launched somewhere from the back lines and hits Cid directly between the eyes. He blinks in response, and squints as his vision slowly refocuses on said viera vermin, glaring something lethal and mouth in a firm line of resolution.

"I have a nice ass," she reiterates, and Balthier can not help but smirk at this. He has trained her well.

o-o-o-o

**Vaan** thinks the real reason Ashe wears thigh highs is because she forgets to shave.

Penelo never had to worry about it because she's blonde, and Fran seems to be immune to body hair in general. Her legs are just about as bare as Reddas' head.

"I bet he spit shines it every morning," the street orphan had confided in his life long partner one nondescript morning. "I bet he can blind people with the reflection of the sun."

"I bet you could suffocate in a pile of your own word vomit," she retaliates, because it is early and because she is cranky.

"That wasn't witty, Penelo," Vaan offers, adamant in this declaration. "Mine was at least witty." He then pauses. "Why do you think Ashe wears thigh highs?"

"Leg hair," Penelo offers simplistically, and without a second's thought. "Why else?"

Vaan grins. This is why they are best friends.

But for the life of him, he can't figure out why Larsa follows suit and wears the same.

o-o-o-o

**Fran** can sense a question before it is officially asked.

She cringes when she senses this premonition coming from Vaan.

"Hey, um Fran?"

She looks at him.

"Why do all viera have only four lettered names?"

"Because we can not count past five and must leave room for our serial number."

Silence.

"I kid."

It takes five seconds for Vaan to close his jaw and about ten more before Balthier remembers to breathe. Not because the previous announcement surprised him, but he was enraged Vaan had the foresight to potentially learn something about the viera race that he himself did not already know.

o-o-o-o

**Balthier** is trying to rekindle the campfire when Vaan continues on his epic quest of obtaining ridiculous answers to even more ridiculous questions.

('Do you ever _think_ before the words come out?' Penelo had asked. Vaan answered with a deft, 'I'm sorry, did you say something?')

"How many Cids _are_ there?" Vaan asks the night sky, very perplexed by inquiries of his own making.

"I know not," Fran offers in response, which is rare, and thus has piqued Balthier's fleeting interest. "But the apocalypse is nigh the day we discover another Ffamran."

"Not funny," the man in question replies, words heavy with dead weight.

Ashe is off snickering somewhere in a corner, of this he is certain.

"Yeah, okay," Vaan begins. "But why Balthier, of all things? I mean, if you're going to rename yourself, at least make it...I don't know…like, cool?"

Balthier is not amused.

"You have an unhealthy fetish with names, child. Were you the victim of severe head trauma in your recent infancy, by any chance?"

Vaan blisters at being called a child (too dense to pick up on the insult of having his infancy referred to as recent) and Balthier smirks because he is the leading man, and the leading man always has the last laugh.

o-o-o-o

Author's Notes

o-o-o-o

I chose to refocus on the main six. It was fun. And at the prodding of the unfairly talented za-za (I shorted your screen name, dear, how do you like it? XD) I have a surprise chapter in the making. (Giggles.) Yes, more updates are in store.

And because I can't resist: I made a new YouTube video concerning Ashe and her desperate need to get a mood ring. I think the men of the group would benefit greatly from said acquirement, don't you? (The link is at the bottom of my profile XD)


	4. Chapter 4

_To Fight Beside You_

_Continued_

**Basch** is standing there, handcuffed and bathed in bullets of his own sweat, anxiously awaiting their orders upon the Leviathan, on which they had somehow managed to get themselves kidnapped once again (never mind the man is thirty some odd years in age – he still finds himself being held hostage and referring to words like _kidnapped_ to describe his current situation.)

And that is when Judge Ghis enters the scene, a waft of over used hand sanitizer and repulsively scented cologne, so great in volume that Basch momentarily wonders if he will suffocate on account of this man's vanity.

And in spite of their current proceedings, Basch can not resist the urge to step outside his normal taciturn character and lean within ear shot of a wildly smirking Balthier.

"I fear we have finally found someone to trump you in hair products."

The smirk vanishes and is replaced with an impromptu snarl of subtle proportions.

"_Natural_," comes the retort, and Basch laughs at this even though he suspects he will be fighting for his life a mere few seconds later.

o-o-o-o

**Penelo** is cooking (or, rather, attempting to cook) over a makeshift bonfire that is more of a joke than a plausible substitute for warmth.

She doesn't mind, however. She's used to making due. It comes with the territory of being an orphan.

And while she is slowly roasting some wayward strip of fiend meat (what it was before being disemboweled escapes her mind at the current moment – and she finds she prefers it better that way) she looks over at an absent minded Fran, staring lackluster into the fire, mind somewhere else and thoughts somewhere further.

Vaan is attempting to tie a sailor's knot with his shoe laces. The fact that he will have to someday untie them has not occurred to him at this point in time.

"Say, Fran," Penelo begins, thirsting for some conversation and an impending bonding moment between two gallantly fighting females.

Fran looks up, wordless, and for a minute Penelo thinks she sees the viera opening her mouth to say something.

"Fran!" Vaan calls out, oblivious in a way only Vaan can be, as he momentarily stops fiddling with his shoelaces long enough to call out the name of his presumed speechless comrade.

Penelo hisses at this interruption.

"No, not _you_! Her!"

The orphan child huffs and puffs something indignant and turns the shade of a rouge tomato before resuming her previous task of bonfire cooking.

Fran surprises them all by actually laughing at this.

o-o-o-o

**Ashe** is convinced Larsa is an undercover drug lord.

The more she thinks about it, the more it makes sense.

(And she isn't to blame for such eccentric reasoning, anyway. There is naught else to do in the Henne Mines when your only plausible conversation options are a silent knight swimming in torrents of angst or a preoccupied sky pirate who's lust for treasure could only be subdued by a lust for your thighs. Ashe opts to remain silent. There is less chance of retaliatory blood shed that way.)

Her curiosity, and determination, only grow each time Larsa nonchalantly produces a hi potion from the confines of his garb, more often than not for the well being of Penelo – for it is no secret he harbors some sort of soft spot for the child, a fact that turns Vaan five different shades of red with jealousy – and by their third day of venturing through the darkness and gloom, Ashe is thoroughly convinced that Archades has some secret covert operation going on underground, and this may very well be why the nation is so affluent.

Perhaps she should take notes and do the same. If the grandeur of the Larsa's home city is any indication, Ranbastre could fare well if she were to take part in this narcotic nonsense, dishing out not-quite-legal medical supplies on the side. (All in the name of justice, of course.)

She's about to propose the idea to Basch, but figures it best if he, perhaps, is left in the dark concerning this particular subject matter.

She somehow doubts he'd be very understanding.

o-o-o-o

**Fran** is resuming her seat as navigator on the Strahl, the rag tag team of heroes fully in tow, all except for Balthier, who is, of course, leading.

She readies the main engine boosters with a flick of a switch and waits patiently for the communications screen to come to life in a dizzying display of sounds and colors.

Patience never being a virtue of his (as is his self proclaimed hilarity) Vaan finds himself poking his head over Fran's bare shoulder, breathing down her neck something sticky and sweet as he waits for the panel to hum with a resonance that will eventually permeate the entire cabin.

"Hey, Fran," he begins, his voice loud enough to warrant its own brass marching band. "I was wondering, about the thong…"

One of Fran's ears twitch.

Even Balthier has stopped fiddling with the controls long enough to see where this is going.

"Does it feel funny when you sit on things?"

Silence.

"Like, cold and stuff?

More silence.

"Or warm? How about warm? Did you ever get burned on your butt?"

Fran chooses to respond to this line of inquiry by flicking Vaan in the face with one of her overgrown ears.

While the street orphan is sprawled out on the metal hallow of the ship, wildly proclaiming Fran has just broken all twelve of his facial bones, including his nose, Balthier smirks something quite lethal and absent mindedly resumes his previous task of lift off.

"I was unaware you could bend like that, darling."

Fran returns the audacious implication with one of her own.

"You should see me in bed."

And this is why Balthier loves her so much.

o-o-o-o

**Balthier** swears on his mother's grave his is only trying to toughen the kid up.

And that is why he is withholding potions from him at this particular moment.

"It's not for amusement, Princess, I swear."

"Balthier – Vaan can hardly breathe."

Penelo would join in on the chastising too, except she is to preoccupied trying to terminate her best friend's wild bout with hyperventilation after being knocked to the ground by a rather irate chocobo whose intentions were far worse than simply winding him.

"He's been breathing for eighteen years, I don't see why he requires aid in the feat now."

Ashe simmers in discontent.

"If you are so desperate, darling, why not go over and offer yourself in the ways of CPR? I am sure it will go most appreciated."

"I can do such if My Lady does not want to," Basch offers sparingly.

Fran bites her cheek. This entourage amuses her more so than she will ever admit.

"Fine!" she spits, all venom and spite and eighteen other nasty pejoratives.

She marches over – ever the picture of grace and poise, no? – and practically throws Penelo off the boy in question by a simple grasp of the shoulder.

"Lay down," she directs, shoving Vaan onto the lush foliage of the plains in one effortless motion. "And do not talk."

Vaan is turning purple, what with the lack of oxygen and all, and he can't seem to maintain a steady breathing pattern for more than three second intervals.

Asphyxiation is not far off. Ashe can smell it.

"Shouldn't we check his wind pipe first?" Penelo suggests meekly, wringing her hands something wicked. Balthier is surprised her knuckles do not simply pop off.

"Nonsense, I know what I am doing."

Ashe then promptly pinches the boy's nose shut and has their lips collide.

It is then that she realizes she should have listened to Penelo.

For now Vaan's tongue is halfway down her throat and doing a dance in her mouth.

She gags accordingly.

She can't see anything because her vision has turned strawberry red with rage, but she can hear Basch floundering around for an answer, Penelo giggling something wicked, Fran inhaling sharply through her nose, and Balthier – for once – being perfectly silent.

"Gotchya!" Vaan said triumphantly, tearing away from the intimate moment.

Penelo is clawing at her reedy sides now, gasping for breath in a way that made Vaan's depleted lungs seem somewhat inferior.

"Gotchya, too!" she chorused.

All of the sudden, Ashe's vision comes rushing back.

"Wait – you were in on this too, Penelo?"

She silently nods, for she has no air left for a vocal response.

Ashe then shoots daggers at Balthier.

"What, Princess?" he feigns. "I, for once, was not involved in this little ruse. Though I can't say for sure I wish I wasn't."

Ashe can't decipher his double/triple/quadruple negative, for her mind is reeling like a soldier's during a midnight raid on a castle, so she simply opts to huff and stand – and falls gracefully on her face while attempting to do so.

o-o-o-o

**Vaan** is confused.

He knew saving the world always involved traipsing around the universe collecting random relics that seem to hold unfathomable importance in the grand scheme of things, but he fails to see the relevance in collecting all the shards in an attempt to halt world domination.

The Dawn Shard. The Midnight Shard. The Sun Crest Shard.

He just doesn't get it.

"I don't see why we have to sweat out bums off running around and collecting these things. Why is it necessary we put out lives on the line to get these over glorified stones, anyways?"

Balthier hisses through his teeth – for over glorified stones are how he makes his living.

"Because you cease to have any."

And with that, he saunters off.

o-o-o-o

Author's Note

o-o-o-o

I just wanted to send out a very heart felt thank you to all of you who have taken the time to read and review. It means a lot to me, it truly does. And thus, I present to you another little vignette of insanity. (Sadly, this was not the surprise chapter I had in store. However – that means there are still updates ahead, now doesn't it?)

Thank you for your time and comments. I bestow upon you a world of cookies and rainbows. And marshmallows. Can't forget the marshmallows.


	5. Chapter 5

_To Fight Beside You_

_Continued_

**Vaan** is stumbling through the Henne Mines, unable to see his own two feet let alone any fiends that stand in his way.

It then dawns on him, with sudden clarity, that perhaps a Flare spell is in order, and such a casting could be brought down upon a wooden plank of some sort. It was a mine, after all. Flammable objects abound in mines, do they not?

"Hey, I just had a thought," he started, preparing to declare his innovative idea for the rest of group, anticipating anxiously the acolytes he will no doubt reap for coming up with such a nifty feat.

But before he can finish his thought, Fran interrupts him.

"An endangered species, that."

Vaan opens his mouth once again but immediately closes it upon hearing the insult.

Luckily, it is still dark, so no one can see him and his oral state of confusion.

o-o-o-o

**Balthier** unintentionally has, yet again, gobbled up all of their Curaja. And he feels no remorse for such things. "Just run around, Princess, we'll be able to cast it again shortly."

She sneers and glares and does a whole litany of unlady like things, but none the less attempts to jog a little faster in hopes of restoring the MP her comrade so selfishly wasted.

Of course, as impeccable proceedings tend to go, Penelo has chosen now as the time to be attacked by a giant Tiamat, which seems to emerge out of hammer space and take quite a nasty chomping out of her virginal leg.

Vaan, who runs on adrenaline, loyalty, and one too many hormones, dives in to rescue his best friend, only to find his own leg an addition to the feast, and now they are both wailing on the ground while Fran takes said monster out with a ranged attack from one of her arrows.

The four remaining look helplessly on as the two orphans assume the fetal position on the ground.

"Now what do you have to say for yourself?" Ashe sneers.

"Well, I suggest you start running, for one."

Ashe, the strongest magick user next to Penelo, who was temporarily out of commission, sets herself up with the task of running around in dainty little half circles, trying to raise the speed of which her curative properties are restored. After about half an hour of such shinanigans, interspersed with the muffled cries of Vaan and Penelo, Basch silently joins into the fray and follows his highness in what could only be described as a very off key rendition of duck duck goose. They circle the two wounded, repeating the maneuver again and again, until both are nearly out of breath and have hardly any MP to show for it.

"Why don't you try helping?" Ashe suggests, sweat weeping from her brow.

"I can not run," Fran answers, and it is the truth, so little is to be said for that.

Balthier, on the other hand, is just plain lazy.

"I believe in taking a different course of action."

"Feel free to enlighten us," Bach huffed, jogging behind the Queen of Dalmasca, eyes fixated on the grass so as not to stare at more inappropriate things.

The sky pirate procures a flask of rum from somewhere in his leather pants, though only gods know how he manages to keep it hidden with such a severe lack of excess fabric (aside from his sleeves, of course) and crouches next to Penelo with the alcohol extended in his outstretched palm.

"Drink," he orders.

Penelo obeys, and Vaan follows suit.

"They're underage," Ashe points out, stopping for a brief reprise and to calculate how much MP both she and Basch had managed to obtain.

"And I care so very much," comes to sardonic reply of the supplier, who has now moved onto administering some liquor to himself given the current circumstances.

He wipes his mouth on his napkin like sleeves – which appear to be more like wayward table clothes than anything else – and then promptly instructs Ashe to cast whatever white spell she is capable of.

"I have but a mere two castings of Cura," she explains.

"It will do."

All eyes turn to Basch so they can further evaluate him as well.

"I, ah," he stammers. "Was keeping my lady company."

Fran looks like she wants to say something but refrains.

"We camp here for tonight," Balthier decides after Ashe has done all she can do, still unable to see the significance of the alcohol and why two Cura spells should suffice. "And you can all thank me in the morning."

o-o-o-o

**Ashe** has finally figured it out.

Penelo and Vaan have not stopped giggling since they first set up the camp fire. Right now Penelo is sprawled out on her stomach, lanky snow white appendages splayed awkwardly in the air, chin in hands and eyes glossed over and dancing in the moonlight. Vaan looks something similar, but it is not such a flattering position for him.

"So who wants to play Truth or Dare?"

After Ashe had calmed down enough to hear Balthier over the sound of her own indignant huffing, he slowly explained to her the effect alcohol has when combined with curative powers, thus resulting in an inebriated state but with little pain to show for it. Except for corresponding hang over. But he insists they will both live.

"Also, rum is known to increase the speed in which Cura is delivered to the body. In a sense, we have just saturated them both with make shift versions of Curaja."

"…So they're drunk and high…"

"Well, Princess, would you prefer them dead?"

"Yes," Fran articulated. "Well, Vaan, perhaps." Pause. "Penelo is permitted to live, though."

And speaking of Penelo, ever since they had settled down, she has become obsessed with making said camp out more into a slumber party than a routine rest from the journey.

"Truth or Dare?" Basch repeats, for he is doing his absolute best to keep a straight face. He was aware of how serious their injuries previously were, but now that they seem to be mending, it is taking everything within his power to not full out gwaff at them in their current state.

"Yeah, like…like Truth or Dare!"

"Penelo, I fear your explanations need a little work."

"Oh, let's!" Vaan agreed, clasping his hands together.

Basch bites his tongue and stares at his boots.

"You first!" Penelo chimes.

"No, no, _you_ first, Penelo!"

This exchange of responsibility went on for some odd ten minutes.

"Me first," Basch finally decides, for he can tell Ashe is growing weary of listening to such subdued intelligence.

Balthier perks a little, for this could prove to be interesting.

"Um." There is a bout of epic Basch Silence. "How do I go about performing this task again?"

"You _ask_ someone truth or dare, silly!"

"Oh. Right. Ahem."

"Ask me," Balthier offers, sensing black mail potential in the making.

"Then Balthier has to ask _you_!" Vaan gurgled, another fit of hysteria bestowing itself upon him.

Even Ashe has stopped cleaning her sword to see how this exchange will work itself out.

"Balthier. Have you ever … ever … "

Basch is not used to this. Soldiers do not play Truth or Dare on the battlefield.

"Have you ever slept with Fran?" Vaan blurts.

Penelo hyperventilates in anticipation, and they are both rolling in epileptic like fits of giggles on the grass covered floor.

"How should we go about answering this one, love?"

Balthier consults with his partner over just about everything. Even Truth or Dare, apparently.

"I prefer my men with balls that hang."

And now everyone is laughing. Except for Balthier. For obvious reasons.

o-o-o-o

**Penelo** had shared her previous abode with enough testosterone that sometimes her house felt more like a fraternity than anything else. What with eight siblings? All retching and belching and snarfing and flatulating? It's a wonder she emerged as well put together as she did.

This being the case, Vaan's loopy line of questioning – for he was still running strong on the high from last night – made of little consequence to her.

"I think all these ships are phallic symbols, what do you say?"

Penelo stared blankly at him, taking this observation into the most serious of considerations. He may be onto something.

"I mean, like, the Bahamut? Am I really the only one who sees that for what it really is?"

Penelo answers with a very meticulously thought out, "No."

The two then embark on an extravagant verbal exchange in which they try to describe each ship's size in correspondence to its pilot – and therefore – the pilot's personal size.

Ashe is busy turning as white as the Mt. Burmisace snow.

"Oh please," Vaan scoffs, waving a hand at the now albino princess. "With your lacking albatross, you've got nothing to worry about."

Penelo nudges Vaan in the shoulder.

"What's an albatross?" she whispers, not willing to let onto her momentary stupidity. Which is an effort in vain, really, for while she thinks she's merely just whispering, she is, in fact, yelling at the top of her lungs. The Strahl's engines seemed louder when drunk.

"Well, it's _supposed_ to be something burdensome that impedes action or progress. Like…Like Drace, ya know? She can't be prone to dexterity with that metal bra of her's."

"Do definitions always come to you this easily while intoxicated?" Penelo countered.

"Actually…I learned that from Tomaj. Sober."

Ashe is trying to look absolutely riveted with the skyline up ahead, for she can not bring herself to make eye contact with any of her comrades at the current moment. Albatross?

"Should I make him take the albatross comment back, My Highness?"

Vaan gargles a laugh in the back of his throat.

"Gods Basch, how can you say that with a straight face?"

Balthier clears his throat, meaning he had something to say and everyone should immediately drop whatever it was they are doing and pay heed, as he shifts in his pilot's chair.

"If all this nonsense held true, and I suspect that it does not, then I'd have to drive a one man hovercraft."

Vaan doesn't get it.

Penelo, however, does.

Fran sighs at this only too typical bravado her partner puts on.

"But then where would I sit?"

"Isn't that obvious? On my lap, darling."

"A-ha!" Basch triumphs, thrusting a fist in the air. "Now _there's_ a lacking albatross!"

Silence.

Ashe inhaled through her nose.

"Basch. You just used the word wrong."

Balthier snickered.

"Yes indeed. You have just been outsmarted by two drunk orphans. Now tell me, how does that feel?"

o-o-o-o

**Balthier** knew drunken highs don't last forever, as the two in question sourly found out when they were forced to spend an entire evening huddled over the same toilet barfing their internal organs out, but after their initiation of a somewhat forced upon adult hood, they were up and at it again, resilient as ever.

This time the group was making their way to Jahara to answer the bill for some wayward hunt that was terrorizing the community.

The entire way there, Vaan tries to cast Curaja on himself just to recapture the high.

"Drug addict," Penelo buffs

Ashe is eventually forced to confiscate his MP due to too many failed casts in Vaan's general direction.

"What?" he cried, dismay clearly etched into all of his features, like he considered this handover on par with the rumored apocalypse. "I was injured, Ashe. Injured!"

"Yes, you were. But not anymore."

"Yeah huh," he retorts, thrusting an index finger into her line of vision. "Look at this paper cut! Look at it! I need serious medical attention! Someone has to cast Curaja on me! I might bleed out!"

"One less thing to worry about," Fran offers from the back.

Balthier feigns romance on a dime.

"Marry me, love?"

"Viera can't procreate, Balthier. You know this. Therefore your favorite past time would pretty much be rendered useless, would it not?"

"There's always adoption," Penelo chimes in, thinking she is being genuinely helpful.

Fran trips on her stilettos.

o-o-o-o

**Vaan** calls attention to himself once again on their way to the Sandsea in Rabanastre to pick up another hunt notice.

"I just stubbed my toe. Can I have some – "

"No," was the resounding reply in unison.

"But..why? My toe – " he reminds them, just incase they somehow magically forgot " – my toe is severely stubbed!"

"As is his intelligence," Balthier lets the insult fly.

There was a pause in the midst of this appeal.

"Yeah. Well. If I was on Curaja, I'd definitely have a comeback to that."

o-o-o-o

**All** aboard the Strahl once again – this time only eight times richer and six times more sober. The crew, all save for Ashe, are lounging in the cockpit while Balthier sets the controls on autopilot so he can consume some rations he 'borrowed' from the previous city. Ashe is in the shower, and what one should really say is: Ashe Is In The Shower. Nobody disturbs her highness while bathing. She'd even make Vayne wait on her. There isn't a single soul that doubts it.

"Balthier, how come _you're_ never drunk?"

The thieving miscreant rubs his temples fervently. "Sweet Chaos, what have I created?" he can be heard muttering into his flask. Vaan already tried to pilfer some, and was met with the resounding whack the butt of a gun makes when it comes in contact with your fist. He was handed some ice and told to make due. No drugs this time around.

Fran took it upon herself to answer the apparently very perplexing question, for her partner seemed too consumed by the monster of his own creation to articulate words at this very moment.

"He integrates his rum with piss water in order to maintain his wits." There is a momentary lapse of sound. "It tastes like fecal matter."

"Wow, you've tasted fecal matter?" Vaan asked, truly interested by this feat.

Penelo kicks him in the shins, but knows deep down she wants an answer probably worse than he does.

"And piss water too, apparently."

Fran exhales through her teeth, examining her lacquered nails and avoiding direct eye contact, almost as if she didn't deem Vaan worthy of such.

"No, I have not. But Balthier is very skilled with foretelling such imagery."

Vaan cracks a smile. "That's kinda gross, man."

"What were you doing tasting fecal matter?" Penelo queries.

A long sigh. "I lost a bet with Jules." Balthier rubs his forehead, ostensibly trying to eradicate the memory. "Say, why don't we inquire as to what Basch ate in prison for two years?"

Basch, stoic as ever, simply replies, "The intestinal remains of thieving sky pirates."

"Oh, hush," Balthier admonishes, as if Basch were five years old again, and not some battle scarred general. "You're going to give the children nightmares."

Fran dimly smiled. "Touché, Captain."

Basch beams in the wake of recognition, even if it is sans eye contact.

Balthier's nose turns up a bit at this display. "Oh Gods – Fran, you made him smile."

Ashe has just finished up in the shower, fully clothed and hair perfectly in place, as usual, and wanders into the cockpit totally unaware of what she is getting herself into.

"I should get recognition for the feat," Fran decides, switching over to the other hand.

"Yes, you should my dear. Monetary recognition, I would think."

For the first time, the Viera lifts her gaze.

They then both stare expectantly at Ashe.

o-o-o-o

Author's Notes

o-o-o-o

Ha; no, this is still not complete, even though I ended the last section with the term ALL as opposed to a character name. I couldn't pick one, and thus there is the evidence of my indecision.

I just wanted to thank you all for leaving such nice reviews and comments. You're taking time out of your day to write to me, and I really appreciate that. The least I can do is cough up some more chapters. Hee hee. (Will this story ever be done? HA!)

Surprise Chapter still in the making. I fear it will be anti climatic after all I've put you through. Please do not shoot the authoress. She has yet to get married and have a career. Two things I'd like to do before I die, thank you very much. XD

Hope you enjoyed. Twas on the short side, but you can always, like, read it again in Pig Latin or something if you've got the time. (Or the discipline. Geez.)

Until next time, I smother you all with cookies and ice cream! And carrot cake!

(Because what is a party without carrot cake, I ask you, if nothing short of insane?)

And on that note, I think I shall bid thee ado.


	6. Chapter 6

To Fight Beside You

_Resuscitated And Continued_

"**Balthier**, you over shot the landing pad – again."

"Thank you Fran, for confirming all my inadequacies and turning them into vocal declarations. Did anyone not hear Fran's delightful announcement? I over shot the landing pad. Again."

" … I see the addendum of _again_ is what's truly affronting you."

"How could you possible see that, darling? My troubles are not tangible. I do not wear my heart on my sleeve."

This elicits several different responses:

Ashe: That feat is nigh impossible – since you seem to lack the acquirement of said organ to begin with.

Basch: Your sleeves are long enough to wear the entirety of your small intestinal tract on their superfluous garb.

Penelo: Did you ransack a royal dinning room and abscond with the table cloth for future sewing endeavors?

Vaan: … Um, I think his sleeve just got stuck on that joystick of his. I told you to put the damn thing on autopilot. Why doesn't anybody ever listen to me?

An extended silence permeates the cockpit.

"Many things, Vaan, have the tendency to get stuck on his joystick," Fran takes it upon herself to once again inform the masses (in reality: four individuals who happen to be too battle scarred and stressed out to care – but Balthier likes to pretend an entire entourage follows in his ever audacious wake.)

Audacious, perhaps – but not accurate.

Even he can not deny this.

But that doesn't mean he has to acknowledge it out loud.

Or at all.

"So long as you don't over shoot in the bedroom, we can – at the very least – presume all your future conjugal conquests shall fair well in the end."

Ashe graces them with an encore version of her patented 'hmph' - and then sticks that ski slope nose of hers high into the pressurized air. Apparently she is very proud of her latest insult, and even allots herself a few extra bonus points for its impeccable delivery.

Balthier stares pointedly at Fran.

"Yes. Allow me to belabor the plural Ashe was kind enough to utilize in that previous sentence. Not a singular conquest – but _conquests_. Multiple. Meaning: I have conquested again… and again… and again… and again … "

Fran, without providing so much as a simplistic nod of the head, exhales deeply and resumes her previous activity: vacantly staring at the ascending horizon in front of her.

"The past tense of conquest is conquered. There is no such thing as … conquested. Besides, you lack the ambition to attempt a conquest of that magnitude. Also: plural forms can be used to imply no more than two – it is not always meant to convey a vast multitude."

"Ya know what I love?" Vaan butts in, assuming nobody really cares, and quickly finding out that nobody really does.

(This, however, does not stop him from offering a hypothetical answer to go along with his hypothetical question.)

"I love how she can totally, like, rattle you in a manner that is quite reminiscent of a toddler's play thing, and yet you can not do so much as even _touch_ her."

"… Studying the dictionary again, I see," Balthier replies, telling himself such research was made in an attempt to emulate the grandiose vernacular possessed by none other than himself.

So long as one ignores his erroneous understanding of the word: CONQUEST.

But, much to Vaan's credit – he did use all the words correctly this time.

Resorting to note cards, presumably, in the stead of memorization.

. . . Note cards which Penelo most likely wrote.

While Vaan's literacy is still open to debate, it is undisputable fact that his handwriting is nothing to be envied. Penelo may insist on dotting every 'i' with a heart (a terribly out of proportion one, at that) but at least her maiden script was legible, and therefore Vaan – while having to resort to cards decorated by internal organs en masse (ones apparently Balthier himself lacked) he did so without complaint – because, really, what male doesn't like to pretend he has won the affections of a female with a passion so ardent they can employ said female's scribing skills as slave labor under the guise of admiration for her cursive calligraphy?

"I do permit him to touch me," Fran puts forth in her typical fashion – that fashion being nothing more than a whisper meant to rival the echoes of corn husks everywhere – and has no intentions of reiterating her response at a louder volume.

(Say: one that is, perhaps, actually audible?)

She has assumed the roar of the over shot engines would drown out her comment, and therefore Balthier would be the only one privy to such things.

Referencing their bond in a tense that lends itself quite readily to the third person is Fran's version of humor – interlaced with dramatic irony, of course, for that is the comedic venue Balthier tends to pursue, herself in tandem.

Her plans to be clandestine have been foiled, however – but she is not aware of this. Yet.

"And if it's any consolation, he is – indeed – better in bed."

"Finally – the gratitude I deserve."

Ashe's slope of a nose has now begun to promptly bleed, Basch has his lower mandible on the floor, Penelo is blinking rapidly as her ingénue brain tries to process what she thinks she may or may not have heard, and Vaan just falls victim to hysterics.

"Ah – I see we have an audience."

" … Attention Whore!" Ashe stutters, torn between protecting Fran's dignity – but realizing rather quickly Fran can take of herself – and opts instead to abate Balthier once more.

"Of course you have an audience," Vaan blurts. "You were addressing all of us – it said so in your professional noun!"

Penelo finally manages to regain her senses. Enough of them, at least, to correct Vaan on his egregious grammatical syntax.

"Professional Noun?"

"Yeah – like you said the other day."

"I said PRONOUN. Not PROFESSIONAL NOUN."

"Oh – I assumed pro was short for, like, um … professional?"

"This is more than I care to bare witness to," Basch mutters, heading for the rear of the cabin. "Sheer stupidity laced with double entendres quite wanton in nature and sexual by default. I am afraid I must excuse myself, Your Highness. I beg your pardon. I can only handle so many poorly timed implications a day. I have henceforth reached my limit."

"Pardon granted," Balthier offers, as though Basch was referencing him when he articulated the word 'highness'.

" … Hey, Pen - is _that_ a Professional Noun?"

"No, you idiot! It's another pronoun! There are no such things as Professional Nouns! Now stop talking! You're making me look like a bad teacher!"

"Vaan just happens to be a bad learner," Fran says to no one in particular. Balthier is still having considerable trouble landing the Strahl within the designated parameters Rabanastre has thus set into practice, and his tightly furrowed brow ward off the possibility of a conversation.

"Okay – I'm being really quiet, see?" Vaan queries, jabbing Penelo in her malnourished rib cage. He waits for an acknowledgement, but Penelo has closed her eyes and is silently counting to ten.

Maybe – if she did such things slowly enough – when she opened her lashes, he surrogate brother would be gone.

"Is LEARNER even a word?"

No. It appears such numerical attempts were rendered futile. Perhaps if she ventured into the realm of triple digits, Vaan would take the initiative to dissipate.

"I don't think it is," Vaan answers himself, seeing as though Penelo had no intentions of doing it for him, "but I haven't gotten to the L's yet. In the dictionary, I mean. I also haven't gotten around to purchasing that _Hookers On Phonics _thing Balthier said I should go out and buy."

"Hooked," Penelo corrects, eyes still cemented shut. "Hooked On Phonics." Here an inhale of general enormity is in order. "As for the word . . . learner . . . " Another sigh. One of a lesser scale, but still theatrical enough to create a decent echo.

"She's vieran. Maybe they have a woodland translation for the word … learner. "

"It resides in the dictionary," Balthier supplies, haughty despite his current (and continuing) failure. "But I don't think Vaan knows how to properly utilize the novelty of _page_ _numbers_ yet."

"Numbers? I thought the dictionary was only meant for words … "

"Balthier," Penelo says. "Vaan doesn't know how to properly utilize the novelty of _anything _. . . "

"I like this girl. Are we still in the process of recruiting?"

Fran's death stare of blood soaked rage tells him that: no, they are not.

o-o-o-o

**Balthier** finally managed to land the Strahl.

Fran complains of aging another five hundred years – to which Balthier offer naught but the consolation: So what is that to you vieran? A weekend?

Fran furrows her brow in deep contemplation.

"Just what are you so meticulously calculating, m'dear?"

"Our healing rations. Are we deplete?"

"Doubtful – Ashe is frugal enough to invest our excess potions in the stock market, but I don't think she'd be brazen enough to interfere with our elixirs and the like. Especially after Vaan's … curaga addiction. His intervention will just have to wait. In fact, I was thinking of hopping the kid up on the stuff right before we confront Vayne. I'm anticipating that endeavor to be quite epic. Pity I lost my Polaroid. But I digress. Why do you ask?"

"No reason."

"You always have a reason."

"Not always."

Balthier stops lowering the exit ramp (in the middle of its descent, even) and gives Fran his full and undivided attention. Such is a thing not readily garnered and thought to be extinct by the majority of Ivalice's population.

"No. Always."

Fran's ear twitches – which is another thing that is rarely evidenced.

Now Balthier has gone from being a victim of intrigue to a victim of obsession.

"I have all intentions of standing here until you oblige."

"Oblige to what, exactly?"

"Your reasoning behind mentally calculating our health rations."

Fran – now complete in her calculations she had been forced to check thrice over ever since Balthier had taken the initiative to interrupt – decides it is only decent to inform her victim as to why she was going to attack him as opposed to simply … well … attacking him.

"I highly suggest that you refrain from making any more sexual implications that you choose to articulate with the sole purpose of eliciting envious feelings on my behalf."

"Wait, you're harboring this much animosity all because I hypothetically threatened to enlist another female?"

"Yes."

She could have given a more lengthy response, but her leg donning stiletto was telling her otherwise.

Hence why she then took aim at Balthier's head, readied herself for a full frontal assault she _knows_ he saw coming – yet did absolutely nothing to stop, a thing of wonder she would not come to contemplate until much later – and lunged with what should have been her usual pin point accuracy. Except for the ramp. It was half open/half not, and securing a proper foot hold before sending the other one flying into the air was something she forgot to take into account.

This is where Fran topples backwards, compliments of the ramp's unprecedented grating (for Balthier did not picture himself with a partner – much less a vieran – when he was in the process of procuring/building/betting on the ship). It is also here where she finds that her heels have this amazing ability to adhere themselves in between the metal piecing, which then sent her spiraling off the ramp.

One could argue her 'ancient rozzarian foot bondage' was the initial culprit.

Or one could argue it was Balthier.

For the record: it was Balthier.

o-o-o-o

**Basch** has heard many a vulgar oath in his life, especially when he was residing among various blood stained battle fields with a collection of men not nearly as chivalrous as he.

That being said – the current string of vilifications pouring forth from Balthier's mouth were all new to him. He said them with such adamant damnation that Basch knew better than to correct – or remind him of the orphan duo who sat with mouths agape as they watched Balthier tear through every smuggling alcove the Strahl currently housed, all the while providing Ashe with a litany of places she could go and things she could do once she got there. This anathema was bestowed upon her after Balthier discovered that the princess/queen did, indeed, think their potions too great in quantity and had done away with a majority of them at their last checkpoint.

"Someone's got survivor's guilt," Vaan mutters, breaking the silence that had momentarily plagued the orphans.

"Survivor's guilt?" Penelo parroted. "… Ohmigosh! Is Fran dead?!"

"Of course not," Vaan continues to grumble at a decibel he is not familiar with.

His default is usually comprised of one much louder.

But even if Balthier's personal recital of every curse known to mankind were to be rivaled by Vaan's own asinine remarks, he is almost certain all his comments would be drowned out regardless.

Which is saying something given Vaan and his vocal altercations, as they tend to function more like a brass marching band with total disregard for surrounding circumstance – especially when those of more socially acceptable variations oppose them.

"You were in the bathroom doing number two when Fran fell off the exit ramp and broke her leg."

Penelo, still unaware as to what was truly happening, turned to Vaan with a stone cold visage and said nothing but: "Don't you shit on me."

"No, no, no," Vaan tries again, dismissing what Penelo thought was a very threatening threat. (Or a redundant redundancy, as it were.) "You were the one shitting. Like, literally. You always take a potty break before we embark. Only this time you had to take one after, since Basch had constipation right before our designated departure and Balthier didn't want to wait for both you and our resident knight to finish business in the lavatory. Remember? He launched the Strahl before you could unbuckle your seat belt and Basch managed to reunite with his. You called him a poopie head – ironic, now that I think about it."

"Yeah, I know that part. But why is Balthier telling Ashe to reincarnate her dead husband so he can make him bend over?"

"Fran fell. I told you that already. She broke her leg – something to do with the exit ramp, I dunno. Basch carried her to the back room, Balthier dove for the supply closet, and then Ashe fell victim to every derogatory insult in the book. Something about doing away with our healing items."

" … Gee, I wonder why she did that."

"Gods! It wasn't like I was making Curaga Cocaine! Don't try and blame my alleged drug problem for Ashe and her … "

"Common sense?"

"You are decidedly not helping."

"You're not the one that needs help," Penelo grouses, fumbling with the seatbelt she reapplied out of habit. "I'm going into the back to be with Fran. Last time I checked? Broken legs hurt. More so if someone made it a priority to snort the last of our curaga …"

"For the seven thousandth time – I didn't snort any of it! That's the whole point: there was none left to snort – and therefore there is none left for Fran! And now Balthier is going ape shit for that very reason! Wait, Penelo, don't leave me! I think he's trying to summon his dead dad's esper!"

Vaan fumbled all the way down the hall as he tried to reach Fran's temporary quarters. Once he saw just how askew her leg actually was, he clamped his mouth shut, fought back the bile, gently slid the door shut behind him, and joined Penelo on the floor – who had taken it upon herself to hold Fran's hand.

Fran was not arguing.

That's when Vaan knew things were kind of serious.

o-o-o-o

**Ashe** emerged some thirty minutes later – sliding open the metal door and negating eye contact.

No matter – her lashes were wet and her voice kept wavering. Glossy eyes need not be evidenced to ascertain the exact emotion she was trying so dutifully to cover up.

"Um," she began.

Then she tried again: "Um."

"We understand, it's totally cool," Vaan says in a voice far too chipper given the current situation. "You need to go into town and restock on some rations. Maybe feed some orphans, help the homeless find a couple jobs, why not put an end to domestic abuse while you're at it? It's all good. We know we are but a mere sixteen years of age and therefore can't handle all those grisly mental images that no doubt abound in Rabanstre." Here Vaan pauses when he realizes he has just run into an error he forgot to eliminate from his fabricated dialogue. "Ignore the fact that we – uh – grew up there and stuff. Selective amnesia, right? It could happen! So, anyway – go play superhero incognito, let Basch handle all the manly stuff so he can feel all noble and shit, you do that negotiation thing you're so good at, and tell Balthier to … do whatever he does best."

Pause.

"Besides other women."

Here Fran interjects with her own version of uncensored profanity, only she relies on her native tongue and therefore none are sure who she just called what or where they could go after they did said what.

The heralding went without further comment. It was better that way.

"Balthier could gossip with Tomaj," Penelo suggests weakly.

"Oh! Right! Not that we – uh – know Tomaj or anything, because, like I said, we – um – never lived here, which is why we must remain aboard the ship so we can continue to live sheltered lives – but, like, maybe I had this dream about Tomaj, yeah? Some esper deemed me to be worthy of spiritual enlightenment and – "

"Vaan," Fran petitions from the fetal position she has assumed on the cot that is currently cradling her injured body. "If you do not stop talking, I will silence you with my good leg, and then we will have to split the rations."

Ashe tries to laugh, but it comes out kind of strangled.

"Don't worry about it – we're totally cool babysitting a woman five times our collective age. In fact, maybe we'll go do some laps around the cockpit so we can cast, like … cure … with our barely existing MP, and you won't even have to hurry!"

Ashe nods, tries to mouth the words 'thank you' but they kind of bleed into 'I'm so sorry' – and even though none of it is audible and Fran has her back to the threshold, she still manages to say, "I blame you not, Princess. It was my foolish pride. This too, shall pass. Now go, before I mercy kill Vaan in the name of our sanity."

Vaan just sits there with this albino colored look on his face.

"But I'm the comedic relief!"

"Penelo is providing the relief – but you seem to be counter acting it with your … mouth."

Ashe again attempts to say something – but all she can do is nod and close the door behind her, a tremulous hand exposed while doing so.

o-o-o-o

**Fran** reflects.

"He was only meant to get a migraine – I was going to mollify it with elixirs after twenty minutes. Maybe thirty."

Fran offers this nugget of (geriatric?) wisdom through clenched teeth and a face hidden by two separate pillows and an avalanche of blankets. She, too, is trembling, but her voice remains even – albeit slightly muffled – as she contorts into various positions in an attempt to alleviate the pain in her leg.

"I wish I was as strong as you," Penelo says gently, examining Fran's finger nails.

(Vaan figures that manicure maintenance must be a girl thing. Thus he refrains from joining the inspection.)

"No – you are stronger. A stronger woman would not have sought revenge over something so petty."

"I kinda wish I was a strong as you, too," Vaan adds. "I mean – if I could floor Balthier with my shoes? Holy Hell – I think I'd make it my limit break! Hey, speaking of which, why were you trying to kick Balthier in the first place?"

" . . . Does he not understand the meaning of revenge?"

Penelo smiles.

"No, he just doesn't understand the meaning of words in general."

o-o-o-o

**The Bombastic Blond Bimbos** make a feeble attempt to emulate an olympic sized triathlon in no more than five hundred square feet of room – mainly: the entirety of The Strahl and its many convoluted hallways, which do not lend themselves to relay races or speed skating.

(And by speed skating, I refer to Vaan's very pathetic attempt to attach wheels to his metal clad boots while our assortment of reluctant heroes trekked across the Ozmone Plain. He wanted to see if rolling around the open fields would garner him more MP than simply walking or running.)

( . . . or standing completely still, Penelo would like to add . . . )

It was a novel concept – if one can over look the fact that Vaan could not stand upright for more than thirty seconds, therefore rendering the entire fiasco in vain, and Lolita Larsa – as Vaan has thus decided to dub him – had a grand ol' time mocking his inadequacy.

At least until Penelo took it upon herself to whack that same sanity scoffing LowTown Lolita upside the head for making fun of her best friend and Permanent Platonic Partner For Life.

This provided Vaan with a thrill like no other, at least until said thrill was somewhat diminished by the use of the word 'platonic' – which he knew not the meaning to, but made it a priority to look up the moment he was able to retreat to his quarters onboard The Strahl and ransack his personal dictionary for a definitive definition.

He was not exactly thrilled with what he found.

So he took a quill pen that lay in wait by his makeshift bedside and effectively rendered the word PLATONIC out of the dictionary. You can still make it out if you squint your way through the scribbles, or perhaps flip the paper over and hold it up to a mirror. Vaan would have ripped the damn page out entirely, but there were other important words on there he needed to memorize, so he settled for molesting the thing with his own rendition of modern art – which, in a way, was more expressive then a majority of the pieces set on display in Lolita Larsa's own personal collection – or his personally funded Arcades Modern Art Museum.

He then went on to draw a stick figure version of The Pint Sized Pimping Prince adjacent to the term LOLITA – and had he not such an affection for Penelo, would have also included a curvier stick figure sporting naught but dual pig tails next to the term COUGER – but he could not bring himself to insult a woman who just whacked an aristocrat upside the head on his belated behalf.

So he moved onto JAIL BAIT and scribbled in yet another disproportionate figure meant to symbolize Larsa, and left it at that.

At least until he found himself pondering the roller skating idea once more – only this time under much more grave circumstance.

"We've been frolicking to and fro for thirty solid minutes and we barely have enough MP to cast a simple cure – what the hell?"

"I think we're just out of practice," Penelo huffs, red in the face and pink in the cheeks.

"It's raining on your forehead."

"That's called sweat, you idiot. Also, I think we're way too dependent on mega potions and elixirs at this point. Hence this . . . situation."

"Yeah, weren't you, like, the resident mage for a while?"

"A week," Penelo grumbles. "I was mage for a week. Then I passed the torch to Fran because of the abundant Mist and her innate ability to both sense and conjure the elusive thing at the same exact time."

Penelo continues to hyperventilate.

"Alright," she acquiesces. "Get me the damn roller skates."

o-o-o-o

**Penny Of The Projects** finds herself trying to strap on metal wheels to her leather boots, which is kind of hard to accomplish when you lack a decent adhesive.

". . . bubble gum?" Vaan suggests.

The two are camped out once again in Fran's Infirmary, and after casting an insult to cure spells everywhere, devoted their energy to duct taping wheels to their feet – which proved to be futile after about five minutes.

"How did you go about this the first time?" Penelo asks, finally realizing a taped wheel would cease to move.

"I dunno – Basch might have had something to do with it. You know, he can make, like, a complete camp fire out of nothing!"

"Nothing?"

"Well, nothing besides two sticks. Which he rubs. Together. Quickly."

"Or he could just cast Firaga," Fran mutters into her mattress. "Assuming he retains the ability to aim."

". . . the catalyst to this entire ordeal . . ." Penelo murmurs to herself.

Vaan can not reciprocate because he ceases to understand the word CATALYST.

o-o-o-o

**Tomaj** use to pretend he owned the local tavern – and he did, in a round about sort of way. A way that almost made Vaan jealous when he was forced to sit there and generic, nondescript table no. 123 and watch the ease and grace with which Tomaj was able to enter and exit multiple conversations. Tomaj attributes such skill to his much coveted Liquid Courage, but Penelo always demurred his offer, and Vaan was forced to do the same – for Penelo had a tendency to lecture him if she so much as smelled a hint of Vodka on his breath.

Which is really saying something, because you're not supposed to smell Vodka.

And Penelo Lectures (which warrant capitalization) are never fun, even AFTER the aforementioned Vodka.

She makes too much sense, and Vaan can't find any sense, ergo: the combination equates to a monologue instead of an argument.

So Vaan may have been very well tutored in the ways of alcohol, but abstained from its inaudible invitation due to an impending Penelo Lecture Of Doom.

Until now, that is.

"Hey, Franny," Vaan says loud enough to create reverberations throughout the ship.

"Are you tired of living?" Penelo hisses, eyes bulging and looking too reminiscent of economy sized marshmallows.

"Oh please, what is she gonna do? Glare me to death? It's too damn serious in here, I need to lighten the mood. I think she may even like the nickname! Franny's not arguing, see?"

"Hear," the 'Franny' in question says from the confines her recluse. "One can not see someone arguing – or not, in my case. They must hear it."

"There you have it, straight from the horse's mouth!"

Pause.

"Bunny," Vaan corrects himself. "Straight from the bunny's mouth."

"Rabbit," Penelo corrects Vaan's correction. "Straight from the rabbit's mouth."

"Say, Granny Franny – _are_ you straight? Or do you go for any mouth?"

Penelo is on the verge of passing out due to an onslaught of unprecedented embarrassment. She tried to steady herself on the bed post – which didn't really go as planned, since she still has two and a half wheels taped to her feet.

"I could ask the same of you," Fran counters, still unable to show her face, though her voice remains perpetually stoic. Had it not been for her awkward positioning, one could scarcely tell she has been injured in the first place.

Vaan jabs a thumb in Penelo's general direction (once again forgetting Fran was relying on her sense of sound in the stead of visual perception).

"I work with boobs," he proffers.

Penelo can't even get her tongue to work fast enough to defend her maidenhood. She just squeaks something inarticulate and proceeds to lose her (rolling) footage and face plant the floor accordingly.

"Please," Fran continues to grumble into Balthier's two hundred thousand thread count. "Penelo wears the pants in _that_ relationship . . . "

"We both wear pants," Vaan argues, missing the point entirely. "Hey, you didn't break your nose on the way down, did ya Penny? Cuz I'm having a hard enough time helping Granny Franny, I can't play the role of savior to you, too."

"Don't flatter yourself," Penelo picks up her disheveled bangs long enough to say.

She then returns to the comfort of the stone cold floor, because looking at Vaan hurts her brain.

"Perhaps you could help her up," Fran remarks.

"Who? Penelo? Nah – she's good. Besides, she never helps ME up when I fall flat on my face, now do you Pen?"

"That's because you do it all the time," his partner grumbles, sitting upright and reworking her braids. "I have contemplated the benefits of a wheelchair, however."

Fran sounds like she's in the process of choking on something – a carrot, maybe – but once Vaan realizes she has had nothing to eat for the past twenty four hours, he decides it is her own take on the common phenomenon known as laughter – a feat that has eluded her entire village for centuries, and most likely will continue to do so for centuries to come. He thinks Fran just made history. Or perhaps Penelo, who was responsible for eliciting such a feat in the first place.

As for himself?

Well, he'd settle for a place in the footnote of said historical textbook. Maybe he'd even get his own paragraph. But he'd have to beat his counterpart in the impossible, and the only way to trump her accomplishment would be to perhaps convince Fran to don some fabric. Or sneakers.

He's thinking sneakers. He suspects that would be easier.

"Fran's the one with the broken leg," Vaan continues. "Why are you condemning me to the wheelchair?"

"We would move along faster that way." Fran.

"Um, excuse me Granny Franny, I just spent an entire hour running myself ragged for your sake, so don't you take that tone with me!"

"Liar," she says. "Thirty minutes does not equate to an hour."

"I rounded up."

"So I hear."

"Oh, right – back to my original digression: you rabbits all straight? Cuz, like, I'm a little confused when it comes to some matters concerning the lack of logistics within the Eryut Village."

"When did his words start to grow?" Fran queries, almost sounding genuinely interested in the forthcoming answer.

"That's not the only thing that's grown," Penelo buffs, tearing off the last of the wheels.

Fran did that 'lemme choke on my hypothetical carrot' thing again.

"I was, uh, referring to his ego . . . "

Penelo almost donates her teeth to charity sidewalk once more, but Vaan decides to catch her this time, totally unabashed by the exchange of entendres that just took place.

He wasn't smart enough to catch them.

He did, however, manage to catch Penelo.

Which is sort of an improvement, right?

o-o-o-o

**Vaan The Verbose **is now not only mimicking certain sky pirates by way of words, but also in actions. Penelo emerges from Granny Franny's room to find her Platonic Partner pillaging the remains of the cockpit. She stands there, bemused by his vigor, but unsure of his motive.

"Someone did that already," Penelo reminds her spastic pseudo sibling who sometimes had the short term memory of an amnesic gold fish.

"I know, but he was looking for something else."

Penelo quirks a brow – which Vaan finds sexy, but keeps such observations to himself.

Who knew the boy was capable of discerning when to keep his mouth shut?

"Well, what are you looking for?"

"Remember Tomaj?"

Silence.

"I don't think Tomaj is hiding in the supply closet."

"No – not, like, the _actual_ Tomaj – just in general, ya know? The Tavern? The Boobs And The Booze? Liquid Courage? Vodka Vixens? Ring any bells?"

"Air sirens, maybe," Penelo intones. "What's the catch?"

"We get Granny Franny totally plastered, and then Balthier can fix the consequential hangover with what has got to be a decade's worth of elixirs."

Penelo blinks. Opens her mouth to protest – but ultimately opts against it. So she decides to blink some more.

Five minutes later, she's still blinking.

"I mean, how many bar fights did Tomaj manage to drink himself through? I bet beer works better than painkillers, anyway."

It is then that a flask of rum falls from the top shelf and lands itself impeccably upon Vaan's over sized feet.

He grins something manic.

"We'll tell her it's V8."

o-o-o-o

**Granny Franny **is swearing in vieran – the haphazard moniker has a kind of a ring to it, Vaan thinks, if he were not playing the role of recipient while simultaneously trying to force feed a warrior strong enough to eliminate any given adversary with a flick of her wrist.

Oh well – he'll keep it in mind for later, should some beverage company ever require a jingle or slogan of some kind. Lord knows his skull is vacant enough to rent out his frontal lobe for such trivial amusement.

"Okay, I know you probably wanna rip my balls off, but I gotta get you to turn around and drink our magical potion of . . . magic!"

"Brilliant, Vaan."

"You're not helping. Again. Grab that arm, will ya? Fran is being stubborn. And swearing. Which is kind of annoying."

"Multi-tasking," Penelo offers. "You should take notes."

"Aw, come one Granny Franny! You want to get better or not? I need you to drink my special juice!"

"I did not just hear that."

"Listening," Vaan throws over his shoulder. "Maybe you should try taking some notes."

Another tug.

"And jot down some of these obscure woodland phrases she's chanting while you're at it, yeah? I dunno how the hell one goes about spelling half these words, so I guess you'll have to travel down the phonetic route. We can consult Balthier later. Or Fran – after she drinks her medicine!"

Fran finally summons the gumption to dig her dagger like nails into Vaan's sun bleached scalp and level with him through a fist full of hair.

"Do not think I am oblivious as to what you are doing."

"Head Lock!" Vaan squeals. "Illegal! You're cheating!"

Fran – whose face has been hidden up until this point – is horribly askew and contorted in pain, and has even managed to make herself look pale despite the normal hue of her skin.

Penelo commandeers the flask from a prepubescent Vaan, who is all too happy to relinquish the container unto her, and poetically flops to the floor with a resounding thud – though none rush to pick him up.

In fact, he tries the feat himself only to be greeted with the sole of Penelo's leather boot as she shoves him back down so she can talk to Fran in a manner that is verging on mature, or as mature as one can be while holding a fidgeting Vaan underneath the heel of their shoe.

"I know you're smart enough to realize this is not . . . special magic happy juice . . . "

"Penelo, you're giving it away!"

Another adamant stomp.

"Breathe! Can't! Breathe!"

"Would you like to lease one of my stilettos?" Fran offers as cordial as she can be given her totally demolished extremity. "I doubt I'm in any position to wear them, let alone showcase their lethal capabilities."

"Oh, I don't want to kill him. Just, ya know, hurt him and stuff. Periodically. Get what I'm saying?"

Fran smirks as much as she can through the pain.

"I believe I am to respond with a convincing: totally?"

"Yup," Penelo grins while bobbing her head up and down like some misplaced ocean buoy. "I can teach you more slang later. It'll be fun!"

Another absent minded stomp.

"HAND!"

"Quiet – next is a finger, Vaan."

Fran's mouth twitches at the corners.

"And you say I am strong in my will?"

"You are!" Penelo agrees emphatically. "I've been studying! You're such a cool role model!"

Fran does not know how to respond to this, for such compliments are rarely lavished upon her in such a genuine, undiluted manner. Granted, Balthier was never anything but complimentary – in his own twisted, sadomasochistic way – but as far as her interaction with other females?

Fran fears she has been desensitized to the normal spectrum of human emotion.

A trait whose origin was engendered by the dogmatic apathy of her village, no doubt.

Ah; a paradox at it's finest.

… Even _she_ has trouble getting her head around a juxtaposition as interwoven as: dogmatic apathy.

She'll have to consult Balthier later.

. . . if he is still willing to hold a conversation, at this point.

"Make sure you give him enough room to breathe," Fran instructs. "Or gasp."

"Oh, I do. Trust me, I've done this before."

"Perhaps I should be the one studying you."

Penelo's face starts to glow with such radiance she almost appears metallic. Her smile turns on its hi-beam, and the light of The Strahl is reflecting off her teeth.

Fran realizes she has never made anyone smile like this.

Balthier always smirks.

But this?

This is new.

"So. Like. Um."

Penelo holds up the flask.

"I don't need to tell you what this is. But it'll help with the pain. We can deal with the hangover later."

"My composure will be severely compromised."

"So who gives a damn?" Vaan shouts from the floor. "I'm the one getting his teeth kicked in by a chick half his size!"

"It appears I still have much to learn," Fran says quietly, a sign of surrender only Balthier is astute enough to pick up on. "I shall imbibe this . . . magic muck, if you insist."

"We do," Penelo says with another spastic inclination of her head.

Fran stares down at the flask.

"I fear I will most likely require more than you have managed to procure."

" . . . But that's all there was in the supply closet!" Penelo worries, her eyes transforming into saucers once again.

"Closet?" Fran mimics. "Did you try lifting the floorboard in Balthier's chamber? He is a pirate, after all. And what is a pirate without his rum?"

"There's rum in the floorboards?" Vaan chokes out. "Like, these floorboards? Cuz lemme tell you, I'm practically licking the damn things and I taste absolutely NO alcohol . . . "

"Oh Vaan! Don't go pavement licking! You don't know where that pavement's been!"

Fran attempts to imbibe, chokes, and snorts out the meager serving of beverage she had decided it was in her best interest to digest.

Penelo blinks in the wake of her impromptu showering of saliva.

"Rum it is, then."

She releases her stronghold on Vaan, and the two make the trek to what was previously considered holy and consecrated ground: Balthier's Bed Room.

Vaan plans to smuggle more than just the rum.

And Penelo plans to lift more than just the floorboards.

o-o-o-o

Author's Notes

I feel as though this may be one of my weakest chapters thus far. I can't tell if it flows well in a collection of short vignettes. Please let me know if the transition was awkward. I'll return to my more traditional format in the later chapters. The next one is already in the making.

Also; I am painfully aware Vaan is no where near as incompetent as I make him sound, but it provides so much material, how could I resist?

(The Answer: I couldn't. XD)

Oh, and lastly: who wants to see a drunk viera?


	7. Chapter 7

To Fight Beside You

_Resuscitated And Continued_

**Balthier** is growing wary of Tomaj.

Correction: very wary.

Almost as wary as when he spends too much time in the proximity of Vaan, but not quite, because apparently Tomaj comes with alcohol. And that tends to take the edge off just a little.

"Dude, it's not your fault your vieran girlfriend got her panties in a twist over some misplaced innuendo."

"No – no panties," Balthier gripes, for he has downed five beer steins in just over an hour. "Thong. Metal. Quite the sight, really."

"I'll take your word for it."

Balthier had wandered into Tomaj's domain after a fruitless search concerning potions and the like. Granted, he only checked three stalls, but he was overcome with guilt and the only answer to that, he surmised, was alcohol.

"I don't know this city anyway," he grouses, rubbing his temples. "I don't know anything anymore. This is an utter disgrace."

"Well, I'd be in utter disgrace too if I had to wear those fruity looking rainbow rings you've got going on there."

"Tom, no one asked you."

"Not directly, no – but the implication was there."

"And isn't that what got us all into trouble in the first place. Implications."

"Nu-uh. Not me. I'm not in trouble. Truth be told, I'm actually enjoying myself. This is the best thing I've seen all week. Balthier. Drunk. In my tavern."

"It's not actually yours, is it?" Balthier asks, eyes road mapped with blood shots.

"Technically speaking, no. But it is in spirit." Here he pauses so he can take a sympathy drink. He is not really drinking alcohol – actually, it's nothing more than mineral water. Tomaj has a limit. When you're a street ear, you have to – otherwise you start hearing things that weren't said, or you wouldn't be able to take advantage of the things that really were said.

"Also: your shoes are pretty lame."

"Thank you, Tom, for once again extrapolating upon all my eccentricities. I do so hope you are amusing yourself. Is this how you spend your days? Mocking drunkards and lonesome sky pirates?"

"You're traveling with five other people. Lonesome has nothing to do with it."

"Four," Balthier corrects. "… four humes, one viera."

"A pissed one, apparently. Maybe you should get back to her? The leading man doesn't abandon a damsel in distress."

"Fran is no damsel in distress."

"Wow. Then you should definitely hold on to her. She sounds like a keeper." Pause. "Unless, of course, you irrevocably pissed her off. Then you're in trouble."

"You . . . " Balthier beings, gesticulating vaguely, " . . . are an assault on my ears drums."

"So I've been told. Penelo likes me a little, I think. And – speaking of which, how _are_ Penelo and Vaan?"

"I wish not to describe their countenance at the moment."

"Well, that's all very well and fine, but if you're here and they're not – who's with Fran?"

Silence.

"Oh bloody hell . . . I left her at the mercy of Vaan."

Tomaj can't help but repress a smirk.

"Bloody hell, indeed."

"I gotta get back to the air ship. Now. My partner's well being is at stake. More so than before. Point me in the direction of the door, if you would be so kind."

"I will once you manage to stand up without falling back into the chair."

"Then move the damn chair and I'll fall onto the floor."

"What are you going to do after that? Crawl to the Strahl?"

"Yes. If necessary."

Tomaj shakes his head.

"Knowing Vaan? Yeah, it's definitely necessary."

o-o-o-o

**Basch** enters every room at the worst possible time.

He was doing his knightly duty - arms laden with restorative items of every shape and color, cheeks flushed from the effort - when he opened the door to 'Tomaj's Tavern' with his foot (for all other extremities were otherwise preoccupied) and was greeted with the salutations of a very bombastic individual.

"Hey! Hey! There's that dead guy you were telling me about. Except he doesn't appear all that dead. Whatever. You're drunk. What do you know? Anyway – he's got some wicked healing victuals on his person, maybe he can help you out!"

Basch then sees a very disoriented Balthier strewn across the floor.

"That is most unbecoming," Basch finally manages to mutter, looking down on his comrade. "What has hindered your dexterity, dare I ask?"

"The chair," Tomaj supplies. "He told me to move it. Said he wanted to crawl back to the Strahl. Think you could give him a lift? You two seem to know each other."

"Wait, is he … intoxicated?"

"More than intoxicated. He's completely plastered."

Basch's face turns a funny color. Tomaj knows better than to blame it on the faulty lighting.

"Balthier, you are a disgrace. I can not believe you succumbed to the lust of alcohol while your partner waits for your return."

With an indignant snort, he makes for the door.

"I take my leave."

Here Balthier pries his head off the floor to look at the back of Basch's boots as they head for the entrance.

"Must he say that every time he exits a room?"

Tomaj shrugs.

"Apparently." Pause. "I kind of thought he was dead."

They decide to leave it at that.

o-o-o-o

**Ashe** is still feeling guilty for trading in all of their curative items.

She hopes Basch is fairing better in their side quest, for she is too rattled to think properly.

Which is saying something, seeing as though not much rattles her.

She stumbles from shop to shop, filling up her parcel with various implements that may or may not be of use. She desperately wishes Larsa was with them, for he always seemed to know what he was doing, especially when it came to hi-potions and the like.

At this, her mind wanders. And it wanders far, as it is wont to do in dire situations.

(And after seeing the condition Fran's leg was in, she most certainly believes this classifies as dire.)

"So. Why thigh highs?"

Now she is hearing Vaan in her head. Lovely. As if she didn't get enough of his audio commentary on a regular basis.

"You don't have to answer that, Princess," Basch had said sparingly.

She ignored her would be protector.

"Why don't we take into account your current attire?"

Vaan perked up at the possibility of a conversation. Ashe has never spoken more than three words to him directly. Four, if you count her catch phrase: 'Vaan, do not interrupt.'

"You have enough metal on your legs to count as one of Vayne's winged extremities."

"It's aluminum, Ashe." Vaan was very adamant in getting this fact across. "Aluminum. I don't spend thirty seconds of precious cinema getting dead air ships glued to my body."

o-o-o-o

**Fran** is reminiscing.

There is naught else she can do while the orphan duo poke around Balthier's bedroom, doing only the fates know what, but laughing manically all the while. Of course, their laughter is always punctuated by a random, "Fran? You still alive in there?" So at least she knows she has not been completely forgotten.

"Hey, Fam-Fam," Vaan had petitioned one night over the fire.

"It's Balthier, you paisley dolt. Inquire with my correct appellation, if you must."

"Alright alright. Have it your way. Ffamran."

"_Wrong appellation_."

"Oh, fates be damned! I give up! I really just give up! You're just not _fun_, Balthier. Has anyone ever told you that?"

"If they did I sincerely doubt he'd care."

"I wasn't asking you, Penelo."

"At that volume? You might as well have been."

Penelo tries to switch gears and be helpful after her altercation with a certain sandy haired party member.

"Did you have a troubled childhood growing up, Balthier? If so, that may explain a few things. I means, besides – "

"Besides your father," Vaan cuts in, because he has deemed it his right to do so.

Penelo is about to chastise her partner for the sixth time this evening, but Balthier forges ahead with the initial inquiry.

"Now, now, m'dear – who ever said anything about growing up?"

Penelo's smile slowly spreads across her face. Vaan has never referenced her in any form of endearment, so she decided to cherish what she could get when she could get it, and m'dear will do for now.

Vaan senses innuendo in the air. He doesn't like the stench of it. Thus, he decides that the stench needs to be eradicated as quickly as possible. But how?

"So it's sexy when he says he's childish, but I have to be practically geriatric in my maturity. Unbelievable. This – and he still manages to get a 500 year old vieran glued to his side. I mean – ow! Hey! Fran! Lemme go! Lemme go, dammit! That's my ear! And it hurts! How would you like it if I touched one of _your_ ears, huh?"

"She'd eviscerate you," Penelo proffers cheerily.

"449," Fran states out of nowhere. Well, she states it from somewhere, but it didn't sound like it belonged in their vein of conversation at the moment. Hence why she takes it upon herself to elaborate.

"I am 449 years old as of this morn."

"Aw, it's your birthday?" Penelo squeals. "Franny, why didn't you tell me? I would have gotten you something!"

"What something?" Vaan butts in. "Penelo, we're a pair of miscreant orphans stranded in the wiles of the sand sea. What could you have possibly gotten her? Also, this just in: there's sand in my boots."

Fran stares him down.

"You're couture contains too much iron – "

"ALUMINUM! It's aluminum! How many times do I have to say it? I mean, really. Your ears are big enough. One would think you heard it correctly the first time."

"Oh, you mean like you and my name?" Balthier says under his breath, in that ever present, omnipotent way he is so notorious for.

"It's okay, Franny," Penelo amends. "He's just sensitive about these things. He's sensitive about a lot of things, actually."

"Penelo, you're supposed to be on my side. We're partners, remember?"

When no answer materializes, Vaan finds his train of thought still arriving at the station. About ten seconds later, his garrulity begins anew.

"Hey! Why does she get to call Fran 'Franny' and I can't call Balthier 'Fam-Fam'?"

Fran continues with her Medusa-like stare down.

"Because he does not favor you as much."

"Favor me? Oh please, I'm practically his protégé. And as much? As much as who?"

Fran simply shrugs.

"Penelo."

"Alright, so lemme get this straight: I lost my partner _and_ my nicknaming privileges – not to mention the entirety of the sand sea is now lodged within the confines of my boots. My _aluminum_ boots. I can't even – "

Here his train of thought is nowhere to be found.

"I give up. Again."

o-o-o-o

**Vaan** thinks candle light dinners are stupid.

"Way, way stupid," he intones, incase Penelo missed it the first time. "I mean, first of all, you can't see what you're doing, or even what you're eating! It could be laced with cyanide for all you know!"

"Vaan. You can't see cyanide."

"Yeah. Well. Whatever."

He dismisses the correction before picking up the slack and starting anew.

"It's a fire hazard for one thing," he continues, in tones of great import. "Last time I checked? Napkins? Yeah; they're highly flammable. And you could stab yourself with your own fork if you're not careful. A knife, even!"

All this controversy was initiated compliments of Balthier's bedroom and the flotsam he had floating around concerning his day to day life.

"Penelo, we're looking for rum, remember? What are you doing under his bed?"

"I happen to be looking for something else, is all."

"What?" Vaan queries. "Dust bunnies? Speaking of bunnies, Fran can probably hear you. She can probably hear our hearts beat. We should just look for the rum. It's under the floor boards, remember? Not under the bed."

"Well, for your information, Vaan, what I happen to be looking for _is_."

"And what's that?" Vaan asks before promptly checking his vernacular and amending the aforementioned inquisition with " . . . pray tell?"

(His attempts to mimic Balthier's jargon go uncommented upon.)

"His diary."

"Dudes don't keep diaries, Penelo. We keep journals. There's a difference."

"Is there?" she questions rhetorically, continuing on with her fruitless search for Balthier's leather bound notebook.

"I saw him writing in it the other day when he thought no one was watching," she explains. "It has to be here _somewhere_."

"Penelo. Fran's in pain. Um, priorities?"

It was the first time ever Vaan had to reprimand her-as opposed to the other way around.

"True. But I already located the rum. So you go give it to her while I finish up here."

"Wait, what? When the hell did you find the rum?"

"When you were complaining about candle light dinners."

Vaan now sees a bottle of rum situated in the far corner of the room.

"Yeah. Well. That's nothing special. I could have found that if I wasn't waylaid by our resident captain's love affair with scented candles."

Upon issuing this excuse, said captain's protégé remembers his own priorities.

"Hey Fran! You still alive back there?"

Penelo's legs stop kicking. Her head is completely obscured by the Rozarrian sheets and her voice is muffled as a result. Her only visible asset is … well … her ass.

"Vaan! My gods! Go check on her proper!"

"No. You."

"No. _You_."

When neither moves toward the door, Penelo takes it upon herself to elaborate.

"I'm busy. Besides, I already did my part. I found the rum. Now it's your turn."

"This is highly unlike you, Pen. Fran is in pain."

"Then go make it better."

The moment is bereft of communication for the next five seconds.

" … Hurry not," comes a voice from down the hall. "I, too, wish to see this notebook you speak of."

"See? I _told_ you she could hear our hearts beat!"

Penelo sighs, braids all askew from rummaging through Balthier's personal effects.

"All I found was a calling card for Flamenca's Brothel House in Rabanastre."

"Try under the mattress," Fran suggests, voice as strong and solid as ever. "Then fetch the rum. And tell Vaan 145/100. 'Tis his blood pressure."

"She can hear my _blood pressure_?"

Penelo smiles.

"Okay. Now I'm officially impressed."

o-o-o-o

**Penelo** has never garnered more relief then when she intentionally intoxicated a disabled viera.

"Go," Fran orders, pinching her nose and throwing back the alcohol. "This beverage agrees with me not, and you have more important matters to attend to. The notebook. Retrieve it. Quickly; before I slumber."

"Slumber?" Vaan parrots, disappointment evident in not only his face but also his tone. "I thought we were gonna get you good and drunk."

"Perhaps. If I do not wretch first."

"Okay! It's decided then!" Penelo is only too happy to oblige. "Vaan, you stay here and help Granny Franny vomit, and I'll go look for the notebook!"

" … You're being a little immature about this whole thing, ya know."

As if Vaan is one to comment on maturity.

"You heard Fran! She _wants_ me to go."

Vaan is clearly missing something because he is not female and does not understand the intrigue of a hidden diary.

"The two of you are insane," he concludes. "At least Fran has an excuse. You're just acting like . . . Filo."

"Oh please. Filo would be proud."

And without further ado, Penelo is off.

o-o-o-o

Author's Note

Thank you so much for reading and reviewing!

I'll make my best effort to respond to one and all!

Also: Flamenca's Brothel is from a story by the wondrous Pellaaearien entitled GOOD ENOUGH. I wanted to pay it homage, since I do enjoy reading it so. I hope you don't mind, m'dear. If you do, I will gladly take the reference out. But I thought you'd get a kick outta it.

SURPRISE! XD

(And yes – I got both sky pirates drunk in one chapter. Now they can nurse corresponding hangovers in tandem. How romantic.)


End file.
